Environment/Energy/Wildlife

…it was not the “unexpectedly high” tsunami that caused the accident. Reactors No. 5 and No. 6 remained intact, even though they were damaged to the same extent as the other four reactors by the earthquakes and tsunami. The difference was that they had a source of electricity through the air-cooled emergency diesel engine that had been was installed ad hoc by the management because they wanted to save money when the government demanded increased back up from two to three emergency generator sets.

This article, written by a MIT trained reactor engineer, also details the obvious lies told by the operator and government and explains why the portable generators did not work.

“The unfortunate thing is that because electric cars are very associated with the left-wing environmental green movement to combat global warming and reduce [carbon dioxide], the idea of vehicle electrification triggers this visceral reaction on the part of conservatives — which is, if it’s electric it must be a product of the left-wing, Democratic enviro-political machine, therefore we hate it.”

The dangerous air pollution generated last year by the twenty-six coal-fired power plants owned wholly or in part by AEP contributed to as many as 3,200 deaths, over 20,000 asthma attacks and incidents, over 2,000 hospital and emergency room visits and over 1,000,000 lost work-days …

An engineer deleted text messages from his cell phone that show that BP knew it was lying about oil flowrates and also knew that their silly “top kill” would fail. Top kill would fail at flow rates greater than the official BP lie rate of 5,000 barrels a day. The engineer knew the rate was over 15,000 barrels a day and everyone knew the actual rate was closer to 50,000 barrels a day. It will be interesting to learn if this employee even had control of his company cell phone.

Finance

Anti-Trust – Microsoft Defeats/Bribes B&N

Barnes & Noble and Microsoft have settled their patent litigation, and moving forward, Barnes & Noble and Newco will have a royalty-bearing license under Microsoft’s patents for its NOOK eReader and Tablet products. This paves the way for both companies to collaborate and reach a broader set of customers.

It is outrageous that Microsoft was allowed to inflict such costs on B&N that they would agree to such a deal. Under those circumstances, it is not fair to call this a sell out, it’s extortion. The deal gives money to B&N but surrendering to patent royalties is an insult to the rest of the world and Microsoft will swiftly ruin the ebook business.

Bing search engine and partner Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) have captured nearly one-third of the Internet search market, but Microsoft’s online services business still lost $479 million last quarter. Nokia, its premier partner for Windows Phone, sold more than 2 million Lumia smartphones, but last quarter it still reported a $1.2 billion net loss.

Will someone please put a stop to this blatant use of monopoly rents to expand an abusive monopoly and deprive the world of both first rate software and electronic books? Barnes and Noble’s case indicates that the whole case was about crippling Android devices, by eliminating “computer like” features and loading all of them with an uncompetitive royalty.

PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

The four-part series America Revealed, airing on PBS stations this month, looks at big-picture economic issues, from agriculture to transportation to manufacturing. The series underwriter? The Dow Chemical Company, whose commercial interests closely track the subjects covered in the PBS series.

Embroiled in controversy for its role in passing “Stand Your Ground” laws highlighted in the Trayvon Martin shooting, the American Legislative Exchange Council also worked to block federal regulation of toxic power plant waste that’s contaminating groundwater supplies across the country — and it turns out that the group has close ties to major coal ash polluters.

Privacy

Here’s a funny story – friend of mine signed up for an account and started “friending” many of her RL friends on the site. Which exposed all of us to daily “sexual activity, moderate, 2h 11m” reports. Sure, she should have been more vigilant about her data, but alas, now she’s stuck with it being recorded and available. No way for her to remove those from the site.

Can you imagine an 85-year-old lady and 95-year-old retired Air Force Major in wheelchairs being treated like terrorists? … they sure didn’t expect to be subjected to accusations, extreme pat-downs, and most importantly, to be missing $300 in cash.

They did not think the money was more important than the humilliation but they were angry that the TSA’s cameras were too fuzzy to see who stole the money.

a new report notes that if you actually bothered to read all the privacy policies you encounter on a daily basis, it would take you 250 working hours per year — or about 30 workdays … Imagine if you read terms of service and end user license agreements too.

So, by not regulating data sharing, society puts an impossible burden on everyone.

Education Watch

the Washington Post Company’s Kaplan for-profit college division, was, last year, a member of the controversial business advocacy group the American Legislative Exchange Council. Other major for-profit education companies also joined ALEC. Republic Report has obtained a July 2011 document showing Kaplan Higher Education and other for-profits as members of ALEC’s Education Task Force.

You don’t have to be a constitutional scholar to get that using public money to fund religious schools violates the letter and spirit of the first amendment. Even the radical conservatives in today’s Federalist Society would agree that the US constitution would not allow the government to cut a check to, say, the local mosque in exchange for supplying education to local schoolchildren. That is why they invented “vouchers”: by pushing the “choice” to use government money to subsidize religion down to the parents, the government can fund religious schools while pretending that it is not.

The largest religious school groupp to have taken advantage of state subsidized religious instruction in the US is actually Islamic.

Quebec students who pay the lowest tuition fees across Canada are faced with a 75% tuition fee increase. Currently, the average annual cost to attend a Quebec university is $2,519. … student protesters are highlighting the fact that Finance Minister Raymond Bachand’s provincial budget of 2011-2012 will cut public and accessible healthcare, hydroelectricity and education. … The high point of the ‘Quebec Spring’ has been the 200 000-strong demonstration in Montreal on March 22. On the day, students successfully blocked the Port of Montreal for several hours, a tactic recently used at the Oakland General Strike in November.

The merger of student and labor interests terrifies the 1% because it effectively breaks their power over the rest of us.

Staff of the EPO is given yet more reasons to protest tomorrow at the British Consulate, for the so-called 'President' of the EPO reminds everyone of the very raison d'être for the protest -- a vain disregard for the rule of law

The European Patent Office (EPO) President, Benoît Battistelli, reportedly started threatening -- as before -- staff that decides to exercise the right to assemble and protest against abuses, including the abuses of President Battistelli himself

A protest in Munich in less than 6 days will target Mr. Sean Dennehey, who has helped Battistelli cover up his abuses and crush legitimate critics, whom he deemed illegal opposition as if the EPO is an authoritarian regime as opposed to a public service which taxpayers are reluctantly (but forcibly) funding